2/08/2011 @ 3:10PM

The Best Cars For Commuters, 2011

Dreading your daily drive to the office? You’re not alone. More than 42 million Americans spend at least 30 minutes in the car on their morning commutes. Seven million spend over an hour.

For that kind of time spent in traffic, it pays to have a reliable car: something spacious enough for comfort, small enough to get good gas mileage and durable enough to withstand the occasional fender-bender.

Turns out you may not have to empty your wallet to get such a ride. According to our list of the Best Cars for Commuters, this year mid-size sedans like the $19,395 Hyundai Sonata and hatchbacks like the $20,100 MINI Cooper are best for surviving the slog.

To compile our list, we started with new vehicles listed as Consumer Reports “Recommended Picks” for this year. Recommended Picks are models that have average or better predicted reliability and that meet Consumer Reports’ safety standards; they also had to have performed well in accelerating, braking, handling, comfort and other user-oriented tests.

Then we combined the highway miles per gallon (the CR-rated numbers) for each vehicle with their front legroom and front headroom measurements, assigning one point for each mile per gallon and one point for each inch of space, for a grand total score. Of those finalists, the 11 vehicles with the best combination of highway fuel efficiency, legroom and headroom made our list.

We didn’t put any price limit on the automotive contenders, since there are cars at any price point that can be great on a morning commute, but interestingly all of our finalists cost well under $30,000, and all the cars on the list without the added price of hybrid technology cost less than $25,000.

The reason for that skew toward lower retail pricing is the emphasis we placed on fuel efficiency–most luxury sedans and crossovers weigh more than their less-glamorous counterparts, decreasing their average mpg. The hybrids, though heavier and more expensive than their conventional brethren, still achieved good enough gas mileage and reliability scores to make the ranking.

Our winner? The $23,050 Toyota Prius. Consumer Reports rates it at 55 highway miles per gallon and praises it for its firm, steady ride and roomy rear seat. The car has proved extremely reliable in the 10 years since it launched–just ask Jake Fisher.

Fisher, the senior automotive engineer for Consumer Reports, recently tested a 2001 Prius that had 210,000 miles on it.

“We did our fuel efficiency test and a bunch of other tests on that car,” Fisher says. “It had never had a problem with the hybrid system, never had a problem with the electric motor, the batteries or anything. And it had the exact same fuel efficiency that it had when we tested one in 2001.”

That’s exactly what you want to hear about a commuter car. Indeed, three hybrids including the Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Camry Hybrid made our list. They excel at ironing out the volatility between city and highway driving efficiency, and they have proved extremely reliable over the long run (though they command a price premium over their conventional counterparts).

Two diesel-powered cars soared through our testing as well: the $23,225 Volkswagen Golf TDI and $24,995 Volkswagen Jetta Wagon TDI. Each get phenomenal highway mileage (49 mpg each) without sacrificing headroom and legroom inside. Diesel technology works well for commuter vehicles too, for while it does often command a slightly higher MSRP than regular gasoline-fueled cars, it gets up to 20% better efficiency and retains a high resale value.

“Diesel sales in the U.S. industry grew 11% last year, while hybrid sales declined,” says Audi of American President Johan de Nysschen (Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group). “People have come to understand that hybrid technology is not the only solution.”

Missing from our list: the crossovers, SUVs and minivans many families use to haul kids, gear and groceries. Turns out many of those types of vehicles have the same (or even less) space in front than some of the sedans on our list, and much worse fuel efficiency.

The Ford Expedition, for instance, has 40 inches of front leg room and 4 inches of front headroom–less than both the Mazda3 (41 and 4.5 inches) and the Honda Accord (41.5 and 6.5 inches), both of which made our list.